Hamas Gained Nothing with New Agreement, Abbas Says

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The ceasefire agreement signed this week between Hamas and Israel is no different from the original proposal made by Egypt at the beginning of the war, says PA leader.

In an interview with Palestine TV on Thursday, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas said he saw no difference between the original Egyptian-mediated initiative, which was rejected by Hamas, and the one reached this week.

“The Palestinian Authority was the one that asked for this Egyptian initiative,” he stated. “We said that the priority should be to stop the fighting to be followed by the implementation of the 2012 understandings [between Hamas and Israel].”

Abbas added that there was no difference “other than the losses and suffering we went through.”

The Palestinian leader’s words were seen as being directed against Hamas, whose leaders claim that the long-term ceasefire they accepted this week was different from the original one proposed to them by Egypt.

Abbas also criticized Hamas indirectly by stating that the decision for peace or war “should not remain in the hands of one faction. Otherwise, this will lead to chaos.”

Public Executions by Hamas Condemned

Abbas confirmed that Hamas had placed Fatah members under house arrest during the war. He also condemned Hamas’ public executions of suspected “collaborators” as a criminal act. If there are “spies,” he said, “they should be executed within the frame of the law and not in the streets.”

The PA president also strongly condemned Israel, saying it would not escape punishment for its “crimes and massacres” against the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip during Operation Protective Edge.

The prime minister came under fire over the past two days for not bringing the ceasefire agreement to a vote in the cabinet, but rather, together with Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon, accepting the Egyptian proposal based on a legal opinion that said they were authorized earlier in the Gaza operation by the security cabinet to accept the deal.

Israel Denies Claims by Abbas

Sources in the Prime Minister’s Office said Thursday night that contrary to what Abbas claimed, Netanyahu never expressed a willingness to him to return to the 1967 lines.

Likewise, the sources denied flat out a report in a Jordanian newspaper that the two met in Jordan in recent days, saying that Netanyahu did not meet Abbas in the previous days or months.